


A Change of Drive and Mind

by Invulpis



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Character Development, Emotional Manipulation, Episode: s02e13 Mizumono, Gen, M/M, Mizumono, Monologue, One Shot, Pre-Slash, Relationship Development, Will-centric, canon complient, season finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 12:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1688225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Invulpis/pseuds/Invulpis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was while looking down at the phone in his hand that the awful, liberating truth washed over him like the waves of high tide. It quickly encompassed him and dragged him deeper into the welcoming, sickening darkness that had only lapped at his heels hours earlier while sitting in Jack’s office. There was no thought of deception to the move he had just made, only a quiet, instinctual desperation that chilled his mind. </p><p>What Will covets has changed; his actions are evidence of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Change of Drive and Mind

         It was while looking down at the phone in his hand that the awful, liberating truth washed over him like the waves of high tide. It quickly encompassed him and dragged him deeper into the welcoming, sickening darkness that had only lapped at his heels hours earlier while sitting in Jack’s office. There was no thought of deception to the move he had just made, only a quiet, instinctual desperation that chilled his mind. Will never tried to hide from himself, at least on a conscious level he believed, but it was only as the phone rang through his ear and bounced in his skull that he finally came to know himself most intimately. He was silent as he recognized what he had done. The war waged between Jack and Hannibal was coming to its end, and Will, who was ever loyal to his determined and just king, had just left his line and defected to their enemy.

  
         Hannibal Lecter was a cruel and ruthless man. Will knew this first hand after suffering the trauma that came with Hannibal’s role in one’s life. The man had stuck his blood stained hands into Will’s mind and tore and stretched out of curiosity, only to find something astonishing and new. The possibility of friendship. Companionship. Someone compatible with his unique being. It was only then that his greedy mangling of Will had stopped, as he allowed the squabbling Dr.Chilton to piece his toy back together. However, the damage had been done and Hannibal was further from that illusive prize than he had ever been before. This was when Will still had hope of being the man he once was.

  
         As Will attempted to lure the man to his hook, to bestow the reckoning he had promised him in the bleak, cold walls of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, he was met with what could only be the doctor’s twisted form of courtship. At first it was terrifying, the doubt placed in his mind as he allowed the man back in behind his walls. Allowing himself to walk back to that edge that Hannibal had led his burning mind to only months ago. But he believed himself strong enough to stay true to himself in that dark place, and pushed forward to stand by the psychopath. It was during his dubbed “transformation” that his doubt was replaced with reluctant anticipation. He had changed. He was willing to become a killer if it meant securing himself in this man’s trust. The only way to catch prey lurking in the depths is to sink the bait to its level, losing it in the darkness that birthed the monster it is meant to ensnare.

  
         As he changed he found his original resolve weakening. He would find himself losing all thought of his revenge as he looked into those cold compassionate eyes that looked as if they wished to embrace him and rip into him at the same time. At those times his mind was completely encompassed in the present, in the intimate touches and damning words spoken to him as he conversed in total clarity to the man who drove his every action. They spoke of Abagail and Hannibal mourned her with him. He admitted to being unable to accept competition to his place in Will’s life, hours after driving Mason Verger to remove his future child from Margot’s abdomen. He confessed to his selfish, considerably rude acts in his devotion and desire to fixate will permanently to his side. While he informed Will that he would be forgiven if he confessed their sins to Jack and destroyed what he had so lovingly forged. These words, this belief, and trust had swayed and seduced him into his current state. It was undoubtable. There had been something irreplaceable in value about the faith this lonely monster placed in him, something that seeded the regret that consumed Will now.

  
         Will recognized the plea for honesty in the offer to leave the night before together without the blood that would undoubtedly spill in Hannibal and Jacks final confrontation. The last hope of his righteous motivation held him back from taking the promise of peace. That remaining shred dying away as the guilt and grief of his final betrayal of Hannibal’s trust swallowed him while driving home from Hannibal’s table for undoubtedly the last time. There is a jagged memory that lay low until now that Will had not wished to recognize. He remembered how his last conversation with Alana trigged a violent anxiety as they spoke of the man who had influenced them so much. The memory reminding him why the six bullets that had been stored in the chamber of Alana’s gun weighed down his pocket since she momentarily excused herself to mourn in privacy. At the time he was unclear as to why he took them. Like he was unclear as to why the nightmarish beast of his delusions had been changing, he had been unclear as to what drove him to taking from her her protection. The clarity of why was now sharp behind his eyes.

  
         He informed Hannibal that they knew, that they would be coming, that his friend was on his way to end their battle. That call was his final commitment. He had chosen what fate would befall Hannibal, to escape alone as he left an undoubtedly ruined jack. Hannibal had won his camaraderie in the end, his loyalty, compassion, and desire to see the doctor free as he wished them to be. A final repayment to all that the doctor aspired to do for him. For all of Hannibal’s faith, trust, and belief in him he got a shallow, last minute chance to run, with nothing of the future he envisioned with the traitorous subject of his hope for companionship.

  
         As Will drove in the dark night a grade faster than responsible the battle in his mind was churning up his thoughts. The desire to aide Jack flooded him with adrenaline, but the cold sweat on his skin betrayed his desire to run and not look back. Hannibal would be gone by the time he arrived and when he was forced to call paramedics he knew that would cement his decision. But as he sped along the black roads his need to save Jack did not conflict with his desire to honor the trust of a man who had changed him so much, for he knew that as long as Hannibal Lecter escaped into this dreary night that he will have won.

  
With that Will Graham continued to speed down the roads as the skies opened up and the heavens mourned what would be a beautiful loss.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Hannibal fic. I tried hard to get Wills character right but it feels really off to me. Could you let me know how I did?  
> That finale really screwed me up, I just want to keep writing until I get to some divergence point where hannibal and will and abagail still run off together but I feel will is already so out of character idk. Any thoughts?


End file.
